Mark Coker at Smashwords gave his yearly presentation about ebooks.  You can see it here.  One of the facts in the presentation was that free ebooks are downloaded about 91 times as often as ebooks that people have to pay for.  Therefore, free ebooks can be a great promotional tool for authors.  I can tell you from experience that this is the case.  So far, I have sold about 7,548 copies of His Robot Wife.  To date, His Robot Girlfriend has been downloaded 457,259 times.  I think that the downloads of His Robot Girlfriend help the sales of His Robot Wife, but I can’t be sure about that.  What I am sure of is that His Robot Girlfriend has pushed my name out there as a science-fiction author.  How else can I explain it when I see His Robot Girlfriend (undeserved as it may be) on lists of sci-fi books that include Fahrenheit 451, Hospital Station, I Robot, and other greats.

I have four books that are free downloads.  His Robot Girlfriend was written to be a free download.  I has between writing and editing the book that became Senta and the Steel Dragon books 1, 3, and 5.  I thought it would be a good idea to get my name out there and help drive interest in my writing.  That succeeded in spades.  Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess was just written for myself.  I decided to post it later.  When the reception was positive, I wrote Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress.  I didn’t think about writing any more of his story for a few years.  Those three books are so widely available that they’ve kind of taken on a life of their own.  I wrote Brechalon as an introduction to Senta and the Steel Dragon, and though I’ve played with selling it for 99 cents, I’ve finally decided that it’s more valuable if it drives any sales of The Voyage of the Minotaur.

Over the years, I’ve offered other books free for limited times, just after publication or as part of the Smashwords biannual promotion.  I’ve been thinking about writing another free sic-fi book– a good possibility might be Nova Dancer– either free or free for a while.  Six months maybe or a year.  I have a while to think about that possibility, since Nova Dancer isn’t on my schedule yet.  The whole idea for me though is to make money in 8 to 10 years.  I certainly don’t mind making enough money to pay a bill or buy a new iPad now, but I’ve got a paycheck now.  Ten years from now I’ll be a retired teacher and a full time writer.  If giving away a book now, built up my reputation enough to ensure book sales in 10 years, that would be a really good thing.